Archived updates for Saturday, September 29, 2007

Request for Workaround Period Might Factor Into Injuction Determination

In Verizon Services Corp., et al. v. Vonage Holdings Corp., et al., all judges agreed that the Introduction and Conclusion accurately state the holding of the case, but not much else. The opinion of the Court was filed "by Circuit Judge DYK, in which Chief Judge MICHEL joins as to the Background and parts I and V of the Discussion; and Circuit Judge GAJARSA joins as to the Background and parts II, III, and IV of the Discussion. Chief Judge MICHEL filed an opinion dissenting-in-part. Circuit Judge GAJARSA filed an opinion concurring-in-part and dissenting-in-part."

According to what appears to be dicta in footnote 12 of the Discussion section of Judge Dyk's opinion of the Court,

One factor that is relevant to the balance of the hardships required by the Supreme Court’s decision in eBay was not considered by the district court, namely whether the district court should have allowed time for Vonage to implement a workaround that would avoid continued infringement of the ’574 and ’711 patents before issuing its injunction. Verizon had a cognizable interest in obtaining an injunction to put an end to infringement of its patents; it did not have a cognizable interest in putting Vonage out of business. However, as Verizon points out, Vonage made no request for a workaround period to the district court, and Vonage has already had several months since the district court’s judgment to implement a workaround.